The Five Paladins of the Apocalypse
by the-cloud-whisperer
Summary: In an alternate universe set well ahead of Voltron's current timeline, the Paladins defeat Zarkon, but the real battle of reconquering the universe has just begun. Voltron becomes a scourge rather than a savior. Both a character study and darkfic of sorts, inspired by the Four Horsemen of the book of Revelations, chapter 6, who go forth and lay waste to the land in the end times.


**A/N:** According to the New International Version of the Bible, the four riders in order are Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Conquest sounds too similar to War, though, so I went with the less common interpretation of Pestilence or disease.

* * *

Once, they were only human. And every human has demons.

Perhaps, if they had had some warning, some inkling that their lives were about to change forever, when an alien ship came crashing down to Earth, they might have made it out unscathed. But the Paladins of Voltron went to war blind, and there is no justice on the battlefield.

Zarkon is no more. He was easy to kill after all, no more than a man on a carven throne, a mere king before a god. Voltron is the new deity, but the universe is vast, and Zarkon's reach went beyond the frontiers of known space. The people he ruled for ten thousand years have never known life without Galra overlords. The world as they know it is coming to a close, and Voltron is a sign of the end times. They resist as much as they can, loathe to part with the old ways.

Voltron takes them by force. Their vision for the new world is exacting and rigid. To build it up, they must first tear it down. A reaping comes to pass, and the five as one ride forth.

* * *

 _ **Revelation 6:1-2**_

 _I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest._

The Yellow Paladin has historically been something of a hypochondriac. Hunk's always been afraid, of falling ill, of getting into trouble, of failing his classes, of failing in general. He plays it off as being the voice of reason, but that's not all there is to it. If there's anything in a situation that is remotely fearsome, guaranteed: he'll be afraid of it. Of course, that means he has to spend all his time being brave.

Bravery requires a conscious, deliberate courage, though. Fear begins to rule Hunk's life after Voltron becomes a part of it, fear that he will die, that one of his fellow paladins will die, that Zarkon _won't_ die, that they will fail. He loses that conviction that his fears can be overcome. They permeate his mind like a sickness, leaving him fixated on what might come to pass.

The thing with fear, he realizes, is that once one person is infected with it, it spreads like wildfire, and then their job is half done. It becomes his work to prepare each planet for its doom, to let them know of what is coming.

They don't form Voltron as often as they did when battling Zarkon and the Galra Empire. No foes are strong enough to merit such a show of power. Instead, Hunk goes from planet to planet, meeting those who would stand against them, coming as if in peace. In a way, his presence is a warning, a symptom of imminent fever, from which there will be no reprieve.

Sometimes, if he feels merciful, he will leave a village or two smoking under his bayard, and then there is no doubt. Voltron is near. The plague is coming; they can flee if they wish, but they will not escape the end.

Hunk Garrett, the Yellow Paladin, becomes Pestilence.

* * *

 _ **Revelation 6:3-4**_

 _When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make people kill each other. To him was given a large sword._

The Red Paladin, contrary to popular belief, is not a heartless stoic. Keith's weakness is that he loves too strongly, in fact, when he loves at all. The saying is _too little, too late_ , but with him, it's _too much, too soon_. His love is like a volcano, quietly simmering until it erupts in passion and destruction.

After his parents died in a car crash, the Shiroganes fostered him. Shiro was his first love; Keith would tell you that completely unironically, but then he'd have to kill you. He spends one blissful year with them but then ruins it when he picks a fight with a neighborhood kid in Shiro's defense. It was nothing kids don't call each other all the time, not knowing how words can hurt: 'nerd', 'sissy', 'pussy', 'fag'. Shiro, ever the peacekeeper, would have walked away, turned the other cheek even, but Keith—never. He goes to town, even as Shiro tries to impede him. The other kid takes it badly, can't even walk away under his own steam when it's over. Keith stares down in horror at what he's done, what love led him to do.

He gets placed with a different family, but he doesn't forget Shiro. _No good deed goes unpunished,_ it's true, so he resolves: no more good deeds. He remains aloof and cold, loving no one, least of all himself. He bounces from home to home: no one wants a child with smothered embers for a heart.

He enters the Garrison when he turns eighteen, and it's as if he was eight again. Shiro's in his life once more, and it's stilted at first, but they fall back into their old ways. They remember how they used to talk, walk, breathe together. They remember how to love—but not for long. Shiro leaves for Kerberos and then has the audacity to die. Keith realizes there's something fundamentally wrong with him. If he were superstitious, he'd call it a curse: everyone he loves, he loses. So he resolves not to lose again by having nothing to lose. He quits the Garrison, forgets the name of that loudmouth yet strangely endearing cargo pilot, goes to live under the stars where he can feel a little closer to Shiro.

That all goes out the window when this whole Voltron business starts up. Suddenly he's part of a team with mandatory bonding exercises, God save him. Lance cleverly chooses to forget their exclusive bonding moment, and Keith wishes he could, too. He's forgetting how not to love, how not to lose.

 _Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer._ Keith's bayard is a sword, and if he were a little more poetic, he would realize how fitting that is. Swords are meant for close combat, meant to draw his enemies in so he can see their pupils blown wide with fear and the bloodshot whites of their eyes as he kills them (granted, some of the alien species they meet have neither pupils nor sclera, but it's a nice image). If not for him, they would kill the ones he loves—that's all he fights for.

His mother once owned a T-shirt saying _make love, not war_ ; it's one of the few things he remembers about her. As he fights his way through the galaxies, he wonders: why should the two be mutually exclusive?

He cuts down those who would subdue his new family and friends. Killing Zarkon is as much an act of love as holding Lance in his arms when he breaks down in homesick tears. The same goes for every village that feels the bite of his blade or the melee of the Red Lion. They learn to fear him, his self-righteous wrath like a flash of lightning, and the way he never hesitates to step between his fellow Paladins and the enemy, Red before Blue, Black, Green, Yellow. Red is the color of love and war.

Keith Kogane, the Red Paladin, becomes War.

* * *

 _ **Revelation 6:5-6**_

 _When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "Two pounds of wheat for a day's wages, and six pounds of barley for a day's wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!"_

The Green Paladin's last real supper took place the night their father and brother left. Since then, they've tasted nothing. Pidge doesn't even remember what was on the menu at that last meal together. Peas, probably, though whatever appeal the slimy green critters held for Dad is beyond comprehension.

After the Kerberos mission was announced to be a failure due to pilot error, Pidge doesn't stop believing that Dad and Matt are still alive. It becomes a compulsion; even after the third time they get caught breaking into the Garrison's top secret files (and that's not counting the two times they got in and out unnoticed), they're not satisfied. How could the Garrison simply accept the loss of three of its best and refuse to conduct any further inquiries into the subject?

Pidge knows _the truth is out there_ , that it's being forcibly withheld, and they forgo everything else in search of it. Getting catapulted through a wormhole into deep space and somehow ending up in an alien castle with five robot lions is the best thing that's happened in a while, because it gets them that much closer to their goal.

They empty a platter of space sweets that vaguely resemble lollipops (probably taste more like moldy bread, but who cares) into their backpack in preparation to leave Voltron. The hunger for a family to replace the one they've lost wins out in the end, because Pidge stays. When Shiro relates what he did to protect Matt—that's the closest they've come to feeling sated in months. It never quite departs, though, that famished, almost crazed desire to locate and rescue their loved ones.

Pidge doesn't find them and never will. Somewhere down the road, Galra records tell of the three prisoners from Earth, two of whom died in labor camps a few months after their capture. The third holds Pidge tightly in mourning.

If they will never have a whole family again, Pidge resolves that no one else in the universe will get to have that pleasure either. When Voltron conquers new planets in the name of freedom, they are quick to strike yet always leave the youngest alive. The other paladins know it is out of misplaced vengeance and not mercy. All of them have suffered separately and colossally and as such say nothing. They understand this much about each other: they will all revel in this eternal hunger.

Pidge Gunderson, the Green Paladin, becomes Famine.

* * *

 _ **Revelation 6:7-8**_

 _When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him._

The Blue Paladin has never feared death itself, but rather the anonymity that death confers. It hurts more than Lance lets on when Keith doesn't recognize him. Of course, their rivalry is much less pronounced than he likes to pretend it is. As a cargo pilot, he'd always been placed in different teams than the fighter pilots, but they'd butted heads in a few introductory classes together.

Perhaps it was just easier for Keith to forget him. Lance was constantly reminded that Keith's expulsion was the only reason he got a promotion, that otherwise, he would have just been relegated to the mass of mediocre pilots who would never go on to change the history of space exploration.

Lance worries that those he left behind on Earth will forget him one day, their pain dulled by time. His family was huge, and even when he was at home, he felt the ever-present fear of being ignored and dismissed among a slew of more accomplished siblings and cousins. Now, he fears that he'll have no place to go home to. It's almost a relief when he realizes that with Zarkon's hold on the universe, they'll all probably never go home.

Zarkon—now there's a man who will never die. For millennia after his death, his name will be remembered, and that's more than can be said for Lance.

So he throws himself completely into making sure he will be remembered, if not during his lifetime, then certainly after his death. He jumps in front of bombs and laser fire and evil sorceresses and all sorts of situations that are supposed to be fatal. For him, they never are. Instead, he earns the respect and awe of his fellow paladins, but immortality is a fickle beast. He needs more.

There are brave hearts among the rebellions that they quell, planet after planet, and he sees in them the same dream of being remembered. He fulfills them. They die heroes under his bayard, while he lives long enough to become the villain. It's a win-win situation.

Lance McClain, the Blue Paladin, becomes Death.

* * *

 _ **Isaiah 14:12-13**_

 _How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, "I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God."_

The Black Paladin was once star-bright, like another before him. The years have not dimmed his brilliance, but the shadow he casts is interminably long.

In the beginning, God gave humans free will. Later stories tell of how the morning star rebelled against God because he was jealous of the place humans held in His heart and wanted to rule Heaven himself. But you should remember, _history is written by the victors._

God showed him His plan for humanity, and the morning star saw how the humans would stray from their childhood innocence, would partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and would be cast out into the darkness, all in the name of free will—and God would stand by and let it happen. He would let them weep, grovel to return to His side, and beg forgiveness for a crime He allowed them to commit. Such was His plan.

The morning star rebelled against Heaven because God clearly had no idea how to lovingly care for His creations. He fell, and a third of the host fell with him, sacrificing themselves for these minuscule souls that grew to fear and loathe them.

Shiro realizes that across the universe, the races are no different. They are all willful and refuse to accept that Voltron wants only to restore their freedom to them. The morning star offered light and knowledge to humans in lieu of the darkness of God's abandonment. They refused to take it. Very well, then. If it is not freedom that they want, Voltron will take it from them. He is familiar enough with imprisonment to reproduce it perfectly throughout the myriad star systems.

Takashi Shirogane, the Black Paladin, becomes Lucifer.

* * *

They didn't overcome their demons. They became them.

* * *

 **A/N:**

\- Originally, my mind jumped to Hunk as Famine, but then I thought, c'mon girl, you can do better than that. Hunk=/=the Food Guy. So I gave him and Pidge more metaphorical interpretations of their respective equestrians. I hope they made sense.

\- According to Biblical canon, the four horsemen are released by the Lamb of God (Christ), and are not associated with Satan/Lucifer. But Lucifer was just too appropriate for Shiro.  
\- Where are Allura and Coran in this universe? I'm not sure. I can't imagine them approving of Voltron's new tack, so perhaps they're no longer in the picture x_x


End file.
